Hackel-Fouts battle gets uglier with 'secretly recorded' tape

The open warfare between two of Macomb County's top politicians went nuclear Thursday with the release of a tape by County Executive Mark Hackel to two TV stations in which he claims Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is heard disparaging mentally disabled people, calling them "retards" and "not even human beings."

Fouts said Thursday night on Facebook that the voice of a man saying "nasty" things about mentally disabled people is not him, but called it a phony tape that may have been "electronically engineered" by Hackel as part of their ongoing feud. Fouts did not return messages this morning left by the Free Press on his cell phone and at his office.

Detroit TV stations Fox 2 WJBK-TV and Channel 7 WXYZ both reported Thursday they had received the recordings from Hackel. And Randy Wimbley with Fox 2 reported that Hackel said he received them from someone in Fouts' office. (The recordings are embedded below.)

Hackel did not immediately respond to telephone calls from the Free Press.

"That's the face of the city of Warren," Hackel told a WXYZ reporter. "I'm embarrassed by it. It's disgusting."

"You can't help but think to yourself, that's just pure evil. I mean who even thinks like that, much less says those type of things."

This is the latest development in an ongoing public battle between Fouts, who heads Michigan's third largest city, and Hackel, who this week called the mayor his "stalker."

In a letter dated Wednesday, Fouts asked Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette to investigate what Fouts said is illegal dumping by a contractor and illegal actions by Hackel at the closed Freedom Hill County Park landfill in Sterling Heights, which neighbors Warren to the north. Fouts also questioned trips he said the county executive took on a private jet owned by the contractor involved in the dumping.

Fouts wants state probe over landfill, Hackel calls mayor 'my stalker'

In a series of four recordings aired Thursday by the two TV stations, a voice can be heard talking about mentally disabled people, saying in one of them that "...tonight I'm going to meet a group of retards. Tonight is retard night."

The following audio recordings posted by Fox 2 Detroit have not been verified. The audio contains language that may be objectionable. Listener discretion is advised. 

In another recording, the man's voice said mean things about the way mentally disabled people use bathrooms.

"What good are they? They're dysfunctional human beings. They're not even human beings...I don't want any part of this. This is one of the worse things about being mayor. This is the bottom of the barrel... I don't want to be around them, and I wish them well in a cage," it said in the recording.

Fouts posted on Facebook at 8:13 p.m. Thursday a statement that the recordings

"The contents of this tape DO NOT reflect my attitude towards the mentally challenged. Mark Hackel will do anything and everything to disparage me," according to the post.

He said he blames Hackel for the "PHONY tape," saying that it was released because of Fouts' request for an investigation into the Freedom Hill dumping allegations.

Neither Hackel nor Fouts immediately responded to requests for comment from the Free Press.

Free Press staff writer Christina Hall contributed to this report.

Contact Robert Allen on Twitter @rallenMI or rallen@freepress.com.